


We live on and on and on, death is weak and we are strong. On and on and on, time is weak and we are strong.

by Jory0994



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, Lahabrea knows what's going on, Mass Death, Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Multi, Nudity, Secret Identity Fail, Thancred would like off this ride (and has no idea what's going on), White Mage Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), WoL knows what's going on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 06:07:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20634350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jory0994/pseuds/Jory0994
Summary: What makes a person a person?Is it their memories?Is it what other people remember about them?If you were someone else once, are you responsible for their actions?Their people?Their loved ones?OrHemlock knew Lahabrea was possessing Thancred, and makes arrangements to confront him. Neither like the following events.





	We live on and on and on, death is weak and we are strong. On and on and on, time is weak and we are strong.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Red_Cheshire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Cheshire/gifts).

> Special thanks to Red_Cheshire who was lovely enough to Beta this for me!
> 
> There's a playlist for this.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEHdkIZ-S9a4zrtBGYuX3Lgd4Z2lyDWR6

“Is that comfortable, Love?” Hemlock murmured as she tugged at the knot around his wrist. Thancred was laying on his back, arms spread with his wrists tied to the bedposts. She was straddling his hips, both of them naked. She smirked when she noticed his eyes following her breasts.

  
“Yes or no, lover,” she snickered. “You only get to touch if you’re a  _ good boy _ .” She added mischievously as she sat back.

  
“It’s comfortable, yes.” Thancred breathed, breath hitching as his cock jumped.

  
“Good,” Hemlock purred, tail flicking in pleasure. She slowly slid her hands up his bare chest, claws lightly tracing his skin. She spread herself across him as she bent down to catch his mouth in a kiss, grinning into it when he made a needy noise and jerked the ropes.   
  
She licked into his mouth, dominating the kiss as her hands came up around to rest on his shoulders, one sliding up to tug on his hair. He was panting as she drew back to hold herself up on her arms, his eyes glazed just a bit. Hemlock sighed, halfway between pleasure and frustration.

  
“You know, this would be more fun if you were either actually Thancred or in your own body.” She said with a pout. He froze under her.

  
“What?” He said, too quickly.

  
“Really Lahabrea?  _ Everyone _ with the Echo is  _ sensitive to the Aether _ ,” she tutted. “You’re crazy, not  _ stupid. _ ” She set her chin on her fist, elbow planted on his stolen chest. “Or are you just underestimating me?” She asked with a frown.   
  
Lahabrea stared at her with a blank expression, unreadable emotions swirling in his stolen eyes.

  
“You haven’t changed  _ at all _ , have you, you bitch,” he finally spoke. “Centuries and lifetimes between your betrayal and now and you are  _ still _ shamelessly manipulative. Even fragmented as your soul became you are still  _ you _ . You will be  _ magnificent _ once you are  _ whole _ again, Chaos.” He breathed, a fervent light in his eyes.   
  
Hemlock grinned, more a baring of fangs. “This isn’t  _ nearly  _ the first time I’ve tied you to a bed, is it?” She laughed in his face, seemingly ignoring the words that had fallen from Lahabrea’s stolen lips. So he thought he knew her, but  _ what did it mean _ ?

Hemlock cackled with glee when he tried to kick her off. “It’s not, then? Just how often did this happen?”

Lahabrea snarled at her teasing, and attempted to throw a spell, but the aether he called fizzled as the ropes drained it away as swiftly as he called it to his fingers. He jerked his head around to look at his bound wrists.

  
“Do you like them?” Hemlock asked with a smug smirk. “I started working on them the first time you ran off instead of staying to fight.” She ran a finger over the bindings as she rolled off of his bare lap, causing arcane runes to flare, and more ropes to snake out to wrap around his ankles.

  
“Let me guess, it was easier to make them into a sex toy than a capture weapon,” Lahabrea rolled his eyes, seeming to relax.

  
“You know, it’s comments like that that drove me to make them.” She complained mildly. “But yes, a lowered guard helped.”

  
“It would, you obviously didn’t want him hurt when you confronted me, that seeped into your design,” Lahabrea noted absently, still studying them. “I wasn’t aware you had captured my aetheric signature.”

  
“What makes you think I have?” She asked curiously. She’d made the ropes mostly by instinct, almost in the Echo in fact.

  
“Your ropes are keyed to me specifically…you did it by memory.” He finished flatly.   
  
She smiles slowly. “Yes, yes I did. Do you wonder what else I’ve made?”

  
“Wonders and Horrors enough to throw entire worlds into Chaos.” He snapped, the pressure wave of the Echo flared around them both, suddenly dragging them into the undertow.

_ She was walking the streets of a city beyond imagining, tall glass and steel towers rising into the air like raised swords, piercing the sky as she stared up. She was pulled along as the Echo vision continued, experiencing a day in the life of Lahabrea. _

_ She learned his friends, his favorite drink, his love of poking the mysteries of the Universe. _

_ She watched him snark with his...lab partner? Best friend? Girlfriend? Fuckbuddy? All of the above? Whoever the woman was, Hemlock was drawn to her, like she knew her somehow. She had a sinking feeling as Lahabrae called her Chaos. _

_   
_ _ That was  _ ** _her_ ** _ . _

_   
_ _ The past life when she was ‘whole’ and not a ‘fragment’, was ‘real’ according to him. _

_ Like anyone was real. Pff. He should know a person  _ ** _was_ ** _ their memories. Even if she had been a part of this woman once, Hemlock was her own person now. _

_ Only…. _

_ This Lahabrea  _ ** _did _ ** _ seem to know that. _

_ She felt herself somehow pale as she listened to Chaos’s plan to summon something called Zodiark to save the world. _

_ Mass sacrifice. _

** _Voluntary_ ** _ mass sacrifice. Oh Twelve, please say they came to their senses. _

The Echo shifted around her in a rush, allowing Hemlock catch a glimpse of a face she didn’t recognize but instinctively knew was Lahabrea.

  
_ The next vision was of a charnelhouse. There was no other way to describe it, the stench of blood and death filled the air, and everything was eerily silent. The air was oppressively saturated with aetheric energy. _

_ Hemlock could only watch silently with tears on her face as her Origin helped murder millions of people, collecting their souls and magic into a small, innocuous looking crystal sphere. _

_ It was no wonder that she’d always felt like she was drowning, that she had taken off as soon as she was old enough, desperate to get away from the suffocating feeling. _

_ Just how many people was she responsible for killing? _

_ For murdering. _

_ The blood on her soul was literal  _ ** _oceans_ ** .

_ She watched, forcing herself not to look away. She would remember, even if she’d never know the names. _

_ She had thought that she had seen the worst her Origin had to offer, but she should have known. _

_   
_ _ Tempering. _

_ All the Paragons were Tempered, enthralled. Except for Chaos. Why wasn’t she, why was she immune? _

_ And then,  _ ** _Hydaelyn_ ** _ . _

_ The Sundering. _

_ Chaos had summoned Hydaelyn and further destroyed their world. No wonder Lahabrea called her a traitor. She was, in his Tempered view. _

She was wrenched out of the Echo and spun around. This was not Thancred’s room at the Waking Sands. Where?

  
“Hemlock?!” Thancred questioned with surprise, as he stepped out from a shaded alley. They were standing somewhere in the maze of the streets of Ul’dah. 

  
“What? Oh, we must be inside your mind.” Hemlock murmured with a surprising steadiness as she blinked, trying to find her equilibrium.

  
“.....Why are you naked!?” He blurted, brow creased. “Wait, what? My mind?”   
  
“You’re possessed by a Paragon,” she said in her typical blunt manner as she settled into her on-the-job mindset, “Lahabrea to be exact.” Hemlock watched him pale, thoughts frantic behind his eyes.   
  


“Oh  _ Twelve _ .” He breathed. “What has he done?”

“Nothing to me, or the other Scions yet, but I don’t know what he’s been up to when ‘you’ weren’t around.” Hemlock said frankly.   
  


“But how are—no wait, it’s the Echo isn’t it.” He asked rhetorically. “That...doesn’t explain why you’re naked.” Thancred added, making her smirk when he tried to avert his gaze.

“Well I had to get him in position to tie him up  _ somehow _ .” She countered reasonably, focusing until clothes appeared on her body.

She looked down and huffed, she was wearing the typical Paragon outfit. “That asshole is influencing things here, still.” Hemlock shoved the mask to atop her head, not wanting to look through it, but equally unwilling to throw it away.   
  
“You  _ seduced _ him?” He exclaimed, looking at her with sparks of hurt in his eyes. “In my body?”   
  


“We didn’t do anything.” Hemlock said simply, lips going flat. “We’re both naked in your room at the Sands, and you’re tied to all four bed posts, but that’s it. ” She sighed, slumping a bit before she continued quietly, not meeting his eyes. “Can we have this argument after we get out?”   
  
“That’s fine.” Thancred said, voice strained. He cleared his throat. “So how do we go about getting out?”   
  
“I have no idea!” She replied with false cheer. “I thought we could start with finding ‘Brea and punching him in the face.” 

Hemlock looked around to get a good look at the mental cityscape. It was amazingly detailed, Thancred must know this area like the back of his hand.   
  
“ _ ‘Brea _ ?” He asked warily, eyeing her strangely.   
  
“If he’s going to use me as a dress up doll, I can mutilate his name if I damned well please.” She sniffed, “how do we get to the Palace from here?”   
  
“....This way,” Thancred said after a moment of staring at her, motioning down another alley. “Why are we going to the Palace?”   
  
“Where else would that arrogant little twit be?” She asked rhetorically, starting towards that way.   
  
“Just how do you know him, Hemlock?” He questioned, sounding suspicious at her familiarity. She stopped, tensing.   
  
“Reincarnation is the way of the world Thancred, you know that.” Hemlock said quietly. “He knew me when I lived a different life. The Echo showed me some of it.” She didn’t mention the supposed fragmenting of her soul. She didn’t know what she thought about that yet.   
  
“Oh.” He was equally quiet, and thoughtful. “You, I mean your past self, knew him well?”   
  
Hemlock smiled sadly, tilting her head up to stare at the achingly blue sky. The robes she was wearing were too comfortable, like wearing your favorite sleep clothes, no matter how old and worn.   
  
“Very well, it seems. Enough that he backed me when I came up with a  _ really stupid _ plan that worked.”   
  
“If it’s stupid and it works, it’s not stupid.” He offered encouragingly.   
  
“It got him Tempered.” She snapped, ears flattening, before slumping. “Sorry.”   
  
“No, I’m sorry.” He said softly, hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t think. I-”   
  
“Can we not?” Hemlock said, stepping away with bristling fur. “We should hurry, I don’t know how safe this is.”

She still refused to meet his eyes, clenching her hands in her robe so he wouldn’t see them tremble.   
  
“Alright, let’s go.” He agreed softly, letting his hand fall.   
  
“I’m sorry for snapping.” She muttered as they started walking again, tail lashing behind her. “I’m not...dealing well with what I saw.”   
  
“It’s understandable.” He said firmly. “Losing people hurts, and losing them to Tempering is worse in some ways, since they’re still there.” Thancred closed his eyes tightly and shook his head, fighting off his own memories.   
  
“And to top it off, it was my fault.” She agreed with a bitter smile as they hit the road leading to the Palace.   
  


“Can I ask about that?” He asks hesitantly.   
  
“.....I’ll write a report on it later, the Scions should know.” Hemlock said after a moment, tugging on her hair. “I...need to process it.”

Thancred looked at her sharply, visibly biting back questions. “Fine. As long as it doesn’t take more than a week.”    
  
She nodded sharply and set the subject aside. “What’s the last thing you remember?”   
  
He twitched at the abrupt subject change but went along with it. He was well aware Hemlock was fearless about everything, except her own emotions.   
  
“You were making plans to attend the banquet for Master Gegeruju.”   
  
“Huh, well we kicked Titan’s ass about a week ago, so you’ve only been possessed for about a month.”

Thancred turned to Hemlock as they stopped before the closed, and locked, palace doors. “How do you plan we make our entry?”

Hemlock looked to him and stated with an unnerving ease, “they aren’t real, Thancred, this is all in your mind.” Without pausing she walked through the palace doors as if they were as solid as smoke.

In the moment it had taken for Hemlock to turn around to face him the doors had dissolved like mist, and Thancred stared at her with shock.   
  
“How did you do that?” He asks as he cautiously walked towards her. He looked like a voidsent was going to jump out at him at any moment.   
  
“This is essentially a dream, Than.” She shrugged, before she turned on her heel.   
  
“Chaos always was good at manipulating situations to her advantage.” Lahabrea said from the top of the stairs as he started to walk down them. The stairs abruptly vanished, leaving him to fall almost to the marble floor before he stopped, standing on air less than an inch above the ground. Thancred bit his lip in an effort to suppress a smile.   
  


“Bitch.” Lahabrea said surprisingly amicably as he stood.   
  
“My name is  _ Hemlock Amiticia _ .” She said flatly. “Asshole.”   
  
“Of course it is.” He replied condescendingly, with a curl of his lip.   
  
“Does that offend you?” She asked sweetly, as poisonous as her name. “You’re angered that I’m working against you, love?”   
  
“What do you think?” Lahabrea abruptly snarled as he stalked towards her, looming above her. “Why would I be mad about your betrayal? Why would I be mad that you threw away  _ everything _ we ever cared about?  _ Everyone _ ? About the fact that  _ you _ came up with the plan to save our world, and when we did, you made it  ** _all for nothing_ ** ?!” He finished with a scream of rage, hands motioning furiously.   
  
“I’m sorry.” Hemlock said simply, meeting his ever-changing eyes. He stared at her, shocked, hands falling.   
  
“What?” He asked flatly, disbelief heavy in his tone.   
  
“I’m sorry that my plan got you Tempered, that you aren’t my ‘Brea anymore. And you can’t even tell.” Hemlock said calmly, even as her heart ached. “I’m sorry that you’ll never be free unless you die, that you can’t even tell that you’re enslaved.”   
  
“I am not a slave.” He said in a low hiss, hands clenching. His eyes had narrowed and his shoulder tensed. “You’re the one Tempered by the tainted Light.”   
  
“As you say.” She said agreeably, walking past him casually. She almost felt his shock as he spun to follow her. She watched him seethe in the reflection of an overly polished gold plated vase. It was tacky.   
  
“That’s it?” He asked, only traces of his confusion in his tone. “No pointed questions to trick me into your point of view? No logical arguments that make me want to strangle you?”   
  
“You can’t argue with the Tempered, ‘Brea.” She replied peaceably, wondering just what kind of friends they had been. It sounded like a riot, in both good and bad ways. “It doesn’t work.”    
  


She shook her head at Thancred in the reflection when he made a motion at Lahabrea’s back. It wouldn’t work here, you can’t use the aether in a dream. 

“I said, I am not Temp-” She tracked Lahabrea as he grabbed for her shoulder, turning in time to catch his wrist, and deck him in the jaw with her other hand.   
  
“Ow.” She complained with a pout, looking at her palm where her claws had dug in. Lahabrea had stumbled back, hand on his face.   
  
“Well, plan A didn’t work.” Thancred said dryly. Lahabrea looked between them and started cackling, the sound ringing through the entryway they were still in.   
  
“ _ Plan A is always punch an asshole in the face _ .” He quoted once his laugh had calmed to the occasional manic giggle.   
  
“Oh Twelve’s sake.” Thancred threw his hands up. Hemlock shrugged at him semi-apologetically, she had actually said that to him on one of their first missions together. He’d looked at her pretty strangely then, which was fair, considering she had been a conjurer, and supposed to be pious and serene. 

“Just how much do you remember, Chaos?” Lahabrea asked darkly, giggles and amusement vanishing in a breath.   
  
She studied him for a moment, she didn’t remember anything beyond faded echoes and Echoes. “Does it matter?”   
  
He sputtered. “Of course it matters! If you remember then you should join-”   
  
“Tempered remember?” Hemlock broke in casually, a cruel smirk spreading across her face. “Tainted by the Light, isn’t that what you said?” She continued, clothes shifting to her normal attire as a White Mage, the tight fitting and revealing clothes vastly different from the Paragon robes. The mask was still on her head.   
  
“I told you, didn’t I?  _ My name is Hemlock Amiticia _ .” She studied him for a moment, neutrality slipping over her expression. “I’m not going to join you ‘Brea, no matter my memories.” She told him quietly, almost gently. “I don’t agree with what you are doing.”   
  
He looked at her for a moment. “That’s it then.” He said just as quietly as she had. “One of us is Tempered, and we don’t agree which.”   
  
“Maybe we both are.” She smiled sadly. He huffed a wet laugh.    
  
“That would be our luck.” He agreed.   
  
Hemlock blinked and he was in front of her, he caught her hands as she raised them futility and yanked her to him sharply. He pressed his mouth to hers, almost devouring. He kissed her deeper when she gasped, and abruptly pulled back, casually dodging Thancred as he tried to grab him.   
  
“Goodbye, Chaos.” He said simply, ignoring Thancred sliding in front of her. “We will not meet as friends again in this life.”   
  
“Goodbye, Lahabrea.” She replied, not letting her voice tremble.   
  
  
_ Everything goes dark. _   
  
  
Hemlock bolted upright, scream between her teeth. She looked around frantically, jumping when Thancred stirred beside her.   
  
“What the-” He jerked the ropes frantically.   
  
“Wait, wait.” She said hurriedly, trying to get her racing heart under her control. “You’re going to hurt your-” The ropes crumbled to ash. “Oh, nevermind.”

  
She sat back and looked away from him, tugging the sheet she had discarded however long ago up around her to hide how she trembled. She felt Thancred sit up, wary of his silence. She would not run, she owed him an explanation. Hemlock still almost jumped out of her skin when he took her hand, her head snapping around as he brought it to his lips.   
  
“When you are ready, I will listen.” He said, barely above a whisper.   
  


“But-”   
  


“When you’re ready.” He said firmly, meeting her eyes determinedly. “For now we have our duties. Lahabrea knows all our passwords, our duty rosters, everything.”   
  
Hemlock sucked her breath through her teeth sharply. She hadn’t even considered that.   
  
“You’re right.” She agreed. “Your clothes are on the chair.” She said as she stood, grabbing her own and dressing quickly. “I’ll alert the others.” Hemlock added as she headed to the door.   
  
“Hemlock?” She froze mid step at his gentle tone, something inside her shaking. “We’ll still be friends.” She nodded sharply, not turning lest he see her tears. She knew she’d lose him when she decided on a course of action. He was alive though, and that was enough.   
  



End file.
